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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ptanner who wrote (5485)	8/17/2000 7:41:24 PM
From: Goutam	Respond to of 275872

PT, <I wasn't going to provide a link but then I couldn't decide which I liked the most. Of course, some here probably have the actual processors or other direct knowledge anyway.> Thanks for the links. I don't have a Thunderbird or Duron CPU with me, but I believe what you see at top center of the package in the photos, is just a ceramic plate glued to the main ceramic base. If the plate is removed, you would see a cavity under it containing the chip (glued to the top surface of the cavity in the package) and bonding wires. The components you see around the center top plate are surface mount bypass caps, and some may be resistor arrays. I believe the rubber pads are used to protect the passive components on top of the package (to avoid tilting of the heat sink during the heatsink mounting process). Regards, Goutama

To: ptanner who wrote (5485)	8/17/2000 8:06:01 PM
From: Ali Chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

<The photos make it look like the chips are slightly above the surface of the package -- likely why they provide the four pads to help support the heat sink evenly.> Interestingly enough, Intel does not provide those pads. At least in the old A2 batches we still are getting out of our distributors. Actually, the problem is not to support the head sink evenly, as you say. The chipping happens mostly during installation/re-installation. I've been dealing recently with a bunch of P-III Coppermines, Intel BOXED (!). They came with a heat sink with a very heavy spring. When technicians tried to install the sink, they have to tilt it in order to hook up one end of the spring. Then the sink must be rolled into the "evenly" position, and the other end of the spring takes maybe 20 lbs of force to hook it into the other side of the socket. It takes quite a bit of sophistication if you do not have special tools, and the sink may occasionally roll back and forth chipping edges of the naked silicon, so one of ten chips may become unusable after that. BTW, I guess there must be a documentation picturing the product, and it probably says that the silicon chip sits 0.030" above the substrate surface, ceramic (AMD) or plastic (Intel). On another note, I guess the AMD investors should be capable to afford a sample of company product, and stop be confused about cavities and other packaging issues. Maybe even do their own benchmarking :) :) :) Regards, - Ali